Yana, who is 50 years old. The remains of the prehistoric animal were presented at the Yakutsk Mammoth Museum.
The Mammoth Museum at North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU) has put on display the remains of a baby mammoth. What makes this exhibit special is the animal's relatively well-preserved carcass. It was discovered in the summer of 2024 in the Verkhoyansk region of Yakutia.
The remains of the animal were found by residents village of Batagay In the Batagayka area, this sinkhole began to appear in the 1960s and 1970s. Its diameter is now over a kilometer, but it continues to thaw and widen. Unique finds have previously been made there—a Verkhoyansk horse and a Batagay bison calf, an argali lemming, and an ancient horse foal.
"Local residents arrived at the right time, at the right hour, in Batagaika and saw that a baby mammoth had already melted out of the wall of this sinkhole, approximately 40 meters from the earth's surface, by almost half."- рассказал the head of the laboratory of the Mammoth Museum of NEFU told journalists Maxim Cheprasov.
According to him, the baby mammoth's carcass fragmented under its own weight and the weight of the soil that fell on it. The front half fell to the bottom of the sinkhole, while the rear half was still in the permafrost.
Local residents made a stretcher from improvised means to lift the front part to the surface and placed it in the glacier.
The animal's head is well preserved: trunk, ears, oral cavity, and eye sockets. The back was damaged. The baby mammoth's state of preservation, according to the scientist, is one of the best ever discovered.
The baby mammoth turned out to be a female weighing approximately 180 kg (her live weight could have been around 300 kg). Radiocarbon dating of the remains places the geological age of the animal at over 50 years. The animal itself was approximately one year old or slightly older. The baby mammoth was named Yana.
Photos and videos: NEFU social media
